We finally got the Garden Bookworm up and running, and to start with, we have placed 26 books within the Herbs category: http://gardenbookworm.com/advanced.php?author=&publisher=&category=15&search_text=&sorter=book_name&submit=Search
I'm hoping some of our herb growers will help by sharing your thoughts on these books, and/or adding those we've missed. If you have any questions, just holler!
Herb books - which are good?
I see Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs, Rodale Press, is missing. Louise Riotte also has two quite good books published by Storey. Roses Love Garlic and Carrots Love tomatoes. While the later two are not just about herbs, they do have quite a bit in them about using herbs in the yard and garden. I think all should be included in the list of books on the Garden Bookworm site.
Thanks, leaflady. I added Rodales' book here: http://gardenbookworm.com/c/956/
I think we have Louise Riotte's books listed: http://gardenbookworm.com/advanced.php?search_text=riotte&submit=Search&go=%BB
(just not under herbs - I tried to keep the categories as specific and minimal as possible ;o)
I have four standards I could not do without. Rodale's, John Lust's "The Herb Book", Joseph E, Meyer's "The Herbalist" and The Reader's Digest "Magic and Medicine of Plants." Between all four, I always find what I am looking for, whether it is growing or application.
I forgot to add a hearty thank your for the work and the booklist, Terry! It's a thunderous day, maybe I will take that list and pop off to Barnes and Noble!
You're very welcome - happy shopping!
The complete book of herbs,Rodale's encyclopedia of herbs are my favorites.Jody
Stuck in my chair or I would get up and look it that is the same as mine. Jody. The one with the rose petal bead instructions? Wonderous book, great beads!
I recently purchased The Big Book of Herbs (Dr. Arthur O. Tucker and Tom DeBaggio) and it is incredible! It's a hardcover book, almost 700 pages, and it's full of info and great drawings, including leaves, flowers and SEEDS! If it's missing anything, I haven't discovered it yet! (A bit pricey at $40, but it's beautiful so it makes a nice coffee table book, too!
I shall add that to my 'look for' list, thanks Sequee!
I don't know what your winters are like in Merced, but I intend to spend many long hours in front of the fireplace reading this from cover-to-cover!
Enjoy!
We are extremely mild compared to the rest of the world, but still cold to us. Anything below 70 is considered sweater weather. Outside gardening is once a week, maybe, compared to 24/7 the rest of the year! A good time for reading and computing, both here and there!
Before _The Big Book of Herbs_ came out, Tom Debaggio published a wonderful little paperback entitled _Growing Herbs From Seed, Cutting & Root:an adventure in small miracles_ (Interweave Press, 1994). The chatty style and great attention to detail make this a very accessible book for newbies, too. He certainly got me going! He'll get you to the point where you can pick up one thyme plant at a nursery and envision it turning into a border, rather than trying to figure out how you'll be able to afford 10 thyme plants and still get anything else. Once you start propagating, your collection of various herbs & cultivars tends to grow rather rapidly!
Much of this information is also contained in chapter 7 of The Big Book, but the less formal style and the handy charts make "the little book" a good one to have on your shelf as well.
critterologist, per your suggestion I added DeBaggio's book here: http://davesgarden.com/gbw/c/1617/ if you'd care to comment on it within the Bookworm ;o)
Thanks, Terry. I should've thought of that! My comments have been added....
Growing Herbs in Containers is a good $3.95 book easy to read and lots of info for the novice. authors are Sal GIlbertie and Magigie Oster
1 58017 014 5 is the ISBN number
Others will definitely appreciate your advice on this book, if you'd care to comment: http://aoeu.davesgarden.com/gbw/c/962/
My favorite new herb book is on the web site bookworm I posted about it there
It is called Your Backyard herb garden by Miranda Smith It is one great book. Make a wonderful gift for a new gardener. BEV
Here's a list of my favorite books on herb garden design, in order of most favorite:
Handbook on Herbs and Their Ornamental Uses from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This small handbook is crammed with information in the form of eloquent essays and very comprehensive lists. The black and white pictures catch the unique qualities of form in leaf and general habit of herbs. Some of the titles of the lists are:
Edging Plants for Herb Gardens (includes shade-tolerant herbs)
Worthy Herbs for the Rock Garden (includes shade-tolerant herbs)
I like the essays in this one because they apply to many different kinds of site conditions and lifestyles which, at first, might seem too much of an obstacle to making an herb garden. There's something here for everyone.
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Handbook on Herbs from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden -- This one makes a nice companion to the foregoing. It includes dictionary of herbs like most herbals, but what makes this special is that for each herb there is a category called "Horticultural Use" (in addition to the usual descriptive categories). As a total non-gardener when I first encountered this book, I needed to be told which herbs looked good in front and which herbs needed to hide their scruffy selves behind those; or which ones had an airy habit and which ones looked like tanks on a parade ground (not their phrase).
This handbook is one of the most well written and concise I have ever read on the following topics: "...Uncommon Herbs of Ornamental Value", "Herbs for a Shaded Garden", "Scented Geraniums", "Herbs Used by the Indians and Early Settlers of New England" and other topics.
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Herb Gardens of Delight, by Adelma G. Simmons - Each chapter has a different theme of herb garden and includes a narrative/explanatory essay, design (with plants), and list detailing the herbs in that garden. Again, this book is very special for the combination of comprehensive detail presented concisely in prose so natural you feel as if you are taking a walk through the gardens and the various worlds they open up upon. Themes include fragrance (includes a great section on scented geraniums); kitchen gardens; grays and silvers; Shakespearean garden; a garden of saints; a dye garden; and a garden of medicinal teas.
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The Years in My Herb Garden, by Helen M. Fox - This book goes more deeply into the horticultural uses and growing habits of herbs, along with kitchen and potpourri uses; and various related lore and history. It has a strong emphasis on using cottage flowers, shrubs, and bulbs, corms, and rhizomes among herbs. It is also a very good introduction into the great variety of species within some genera such as the sages (salvia), onions (allium), artemisias, pelargoniums, thymes, and others. Helen Fox writes in a way that makes you feel as if you are right there in her garden through the 1920's - 50's.
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Herbs: Their Culture and Uses, by Rosetta E. Clarkson - When's the last time any of us sent a visitor off to the interstate - with its tunnel of noise barrier walls (purportedly, only 6 to 7% of noise gets decreased) - with a tussie-mussie? How many of us know what a tussie-mussie is? Ms. Clarkson includes old fashioned flowers in her gardens not often seen in the efforts of modern landscapers - their names have a lost poetry in themselves - marsh mallow, speedwell, cornflower, meadowsweet, ambrosia, etc.
Reading this book is like visiting the garden that time forgot, and yet, it's entries on household products, cooking, teas, potpourri are surprisingly relevant to modern times of runaway prices and consumerism. The prose in this book is, like the foregoing, something to savour, along with the gardens it will help you make. (PS - there are tons of comprehensive, useful lists of the different ways to use herbs in the appendix)
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Herb Garden Design, by Faith H. Swanson and Virginia B. Rady - this is a nuts and bolts presentation of herb garden designs from simple to complex. It is sumptuous, and of all the books I list here, it most subjugates the plants to the design. Another thing that sets it apart from the foregoing books is that, being so strong on design, the hardscaping (construction of beds, paths, walls, etc.) imposes more of a financial burden on the garden-maker. There is a lot to learn in this book about herb garden design.
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The Pleasure of Herbs: A Month-by-Month Guide to Growing, Using, and Enjoying Herbs, by Phyllis Shaudys - this is "down-home" stuff. You can pick a spot in this book and run with it right away; that is, go to whatever month you are currently inhabiting, read a bit, and charge forthwith into ye garden with a task relevant to that month.
Or, nevermind the garden - perhaps it's a future or past dream - and charge forthwith into ye kitchen with a recipe celebratory to that month. Beautiful line drawings, sprinklings of poetry, and very clear how-to instructions on how to germinate, propagate, harvest, store and use herbs - often in chart form that pops out at the eye and is geared to late 20th century. This book is a cornucopia of herbal and culinary recipes, many (to me) startling-ly unusual. Has a nice section on organic battling with pests. Do not go into the cycle of the year without this paperback tome.
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The Herb Garden, by Sarah Garland - Another book of herb garden design with a section built on themes such as hardy herb border, wild herb garden, low maintenance herb garden, cottage garden of herbs, kitchen herb garden, medicinal herb garden, scented herb garden, garden for bees and butterflies, dyer's herb garden. Garden designs, lists and narrative included with each theme.
This book is very strong on how individual plants within a given association impact upon each other and how their size, habit, density, manners, etc. decree where to put them into a design.
The first section goes into the history of herb gardens, and later there is a very good section on constructing an herb garden, and another on growing/using, containers, a guide to using herbs in the form of lists, glossary, index. There's a list that classifies herbs according to their colors. I especially appreciate the design and plant list for a medicinal herb garden on p.68 - 69.
Well, to read all these books, I guess we'll all just have to order up another two weeks of snow! LOL and grrrrrr